


thought of you (and where you'd gone)

by akaiiko



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hurt No Comfort, I Mean There's Some Fluff Laced With Angst, Like Cotton Candy Laced With Razor Blades, M/M, Post-Kerberos Mission, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Presumed Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 08:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12791124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaiiko/pseuds/akaiiko
Summary: The world won't end if Shiro doesn't come home. But Keith might.





	thought of you (and where you'd gone)

**Author's Note:**

> an anon on tumblr prompted me with angst and this was how i responded. also, if y’all really want to hurt, listen to the weepies [world spins madly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozX4SZ4MUbI) on w/this.

Three months after mission failure he will collapse in the middle of the desert, under a sky full of meteors, and vomit until his throat burns. He’ll hold himself on hand and knees. It’ll feel like praying. He’ll think of a ship plummeting into ice and _pilot error_ in red across the bottom of a TV screen and the last moments before impact. Maybe he’ll want to vomit again, stomach clenching and hands curling into fists, but he won’t be able to. There’ll be nothing left. 

* * *

The trials are a formality.

A single day in the sim chambers for those who qualified. Everyone in the Garrison watches. Students are expected to write a report afterward. To keep up the pretense that this is educational. Keith leaves his notepad on a bench and dared an instructor to say something.

Before the pilots go in, they’re given a breather and Shiro doesn’t even hesitate before jogging to Keith’s side. Others eye them and Keith knows he’ll have to pay for this later in the sparring ring but he doesn’t care. Shiro’s chosen to spend these last moments before the most important test of his life with Keith. No amount of bruises will take this away.

“Wish me luck,” Shiro says. The flight suit is rumpled but his face is alight with the hunger of _wanting_ something. Maybe that’s why Keith’s stomach clenches with wanting right back. They’ve talked about how much Shiro wants this. To be out there in the stars, reforging the edges of the galaxy, putting his name in history. People don’t think it because most of the time Shiro keeps his ambition tucked beneath his duty but oh, he’s burning up on the inside with his wanting, and Keith aches for him.

Stepping close, Keith says, “You don’t need luck.” Hesitance slows him but doesn’t stop him. Fingers grip the flight suit and tug it into better alignment. It’s hardly anything but Shiro smiles in this way that illuminates all the dark pieces of Keith’s soul.

“Wish me luck,” Shiro says. Gentler, softer, easier. A hand brushes the small of Keith’s back, urging him closer, and Keith gives in instinctively. Garrison rules live in the six inch gap between their bodies. But it doesn’t matter because they both know what it means that Shiro keeps his hand at Keith’s back and Keith lets his palm flatten over Shiro’s steady heart.

Swallowing down his first and second response, things that are sharp when he wants to be soft, Keith finally says, “You really _don’t_ need luck.” He memorizes the way Shiro’s chest expands beneath his hand with a deep inhale, and how Shiro’s eyes crinkle at the corners with suppressed amusement, and how Shiro’s fingertips press into his back with silent admonishment. This moment makes him gentle enough to say what he knows Shiro needs to hear and so he shapes the words with care: “You’re better than luck.”

The sim runs begin. Keith still doesn’t pick up his notepad because he’s gripping the metal railing with white knuckles. The universe hasn’t given Keith many things, but he prays it’ll give Shiro this.

Hours later the trials are concluded. No one ever really thought they’d go differently but Shiro’s newest scores—the best ever clocked in the Garrison’s history—rank him so far ahead of the runner up that it’s almost historic. All the students are yelling, grabbing each other, expressing the joy that instructors are only just tamping down in themselves.

Keith leans forward over the railing and keeps his eyes trained on Shiro’s pod. The doors open with a hydraulic hiss, echoed around the room as other pods open, and the new pilot of the Kerberos mission steps out. Sweat darkens his hair at the temples and his flight suit is even more rumpled. But Shiro knows he’s won, carries his victory in the proud set of his shoulders, and his eyes find Keith in the crowd.

They’re smiling like idiots, the both of them, because they’ve done it. Months of after hours training in the sim chamber, quizzing one another sleepily at 6AM about turn ratios in high gravity atmospheres, skipping break to spar in the gym. Every second of it justified.

Instructors and government bureaucrats crowd around Shiro to congratulate them. Time now for press conferences and official contracts. But Shiro winks at Keith, right before he’s shuffled off. For him, Keith smiles bright enough to put stars in supernova to shame.

* * *

One month after mission failure he will be expelled from the Garrison. Everyone will know that “disciplinary issues” is code for how he launched at an instructor. They will know it’s because the man made Kerberos into a run in the sim chamber. Later Keith will stand in Iverson’s office, mutinous, and scuff away the blood leaking from his nose as he accepts his discharge papers. There will be nothing left for him there anyway.

* * *

Shore leave sneaks up on Keith, and he finds himself looking at a four day weekend with no plans. Normal people go home to their family but that’s not something he can do. The Garrison gets emptier—everyone pilot track is on leave—and that’s how he finds himself sipping coffee in a dead silent cafeteria at ten in the morning.

Halfway through his second cup, someone ruffles his hair and only the intense familiarity of the gesture keeps him from lunging away. The tense line of his shoulders gives it away because Shiro laughs and ruffles his hair _again_. “Calm down,” he says. “It’s just me.”

“I know,” Keith says.

Shiro laughs again and slides onto the bench next to Keith. Close enough that their shoulders brush and their thighs press together. “Okay,” he says. The hand in Keith’s hair slides down to cup the back of his neck, thumb resting lightly just behind one of Keith’s ears, achingly tender. “Plans for shore leave?” he asks.

Lifting his shoulders in a noncommittal shrug, Keith says, “Not really. Probably just catch up on some sleep.” Deep in his ribcage, like Pandora’s Fucking Box, is the request that he’s not going to voice. The _do you want to spend shore leave with me_? The _can we get lost in each other for a few days_? The _would you give me some warmth to hold on to when you leave for a moon made of ice_? No matter how he phrases it, it always sounds pathetic, so he’s not going to say it.

“Do you want to spend it with me?”

For an awful moment Keith almost thinks those words came from him. Horror speeds through him and he bites down on his tongue hard enough to ache. Then he realizes that it was Shiro. That Shiro’s looking at him, hopeful and a little sheepish, adding, “I scheduled my leave to be with yours. I thought we could—”

“Yes,” Keith says.

Shiro blinks. “You sure?”

“Yes.” Because there’s no one around, he reaches for Shiro’s hand on the table and feels something give in his chest as Shiro turns his hand palm upward in silent acceptance. Their fingers lace together, natural and matched, something out of an old story. “I’m sure.”

They take Keith’s bike out. Desert wind rushes against their faces and blurs out the world. Everything’s painted in soft color and heat. It feels like nostalgia. Shiro’s arms are around his waist, pressing them together hip to shoulder, while Shiro’s whispering directions in his ear. They went off road a long time ago but Keith trusts his bike, trusts his gut, trusts his man.

Hours into the trip they come into a town that he’s only seen in official pictures for the press. Piercing the horizon is a ship. It’s hull gleams pale and elegant in the afternoon sun. “Holy shit,” Keith says, throttling the bike to a more sedate pace as they get back on the highway. “They finished it?”

Shiro’s laughter is a huff against his neck. “Last week.”

Even from this distance it’s surreal beautiful. Not just the way it looks like a pearl spire, but the way he knows to his bones that it’s not meant for Earth but for the stars. That’s not why his chest is tight though. In weeks, not months, Shiro will be piloting it out into reaches of space. After all, neither it nor Shiro was ever meant for Earth.

* * *

Seven months after mission failure he will go into town for supplies. The owner of the general store will push a small, battered package across the counter to him and there will be no return address. He’ll strap it to the pack of the bike with all the rest of his things. Moonrise will be on the horizon when he opens it in the dim light provided by the generator. A post it note with someone’s neat scrawl will say _I went to the Garrison for my brother’s things, and I found this. I think Shiro would want you to have it_. Keith will curl over the dogtags marked _Takashi Shirogane_ and scream until he’s hoarse. Only then, when there’s nothing left in him, will the tears come.

* * *

Press conferences have a way of bringing out the Golden Son of the Galaxy Garrison in Shiro. He’s there, behind Dr. Holt, looking capable and handsome in his perfectly ironed uniform. Keith knots his fingers together so hard it hurts and tries to imitate that unflappable calm. Parade rest is the worst but Shiro makes it look easy.

Dr. Holt’s speech—about the wonder of curiosity, the glory of space, the possibility of exploration—concludes. Finally. Cameras flash and people clap and Shiro catches Keith’s eye. Before he’s shuffled away to shake hands, he winks at Keith.

It almost makes standing in full dress uniform in the summer heat worth it.

But it’s definitely worth it when, an hour later, Shiro crowds him into the shadows beneath the ship. “Wish me luck,” Shiro murmurs. It’s like his eyes are lit from within. Gunmetal grey and sparking sure. They focus on Keith with such intensity that it could burn down to marrow.

Mulishly, Keith shakes his head. “You don’t need luck,” he says. Daring Shiro to do something about it because he doesn’t know how to be what Shiro needs right now. How to be anything other than obstinate.

Garrison rules disappear as Shiro presses in closer. Curls over him. Broad shoulders and dark eyes block out everything so that his whole world narrows down to Shiro. “Wish me luck,” Shiro commands, so gently it aches, as his hands slide to cup the back of Keith’s skull. Strong fingers rub gently at Keith’s scalp, almost petting, soothing him into compliance.

“Why?” Keith asks. “You’re better than luck.”

Quicksilver grin is his only answer. Keith relishes it but it disappears so quick that he knows that Shiro’s thinking something. And he’s right, because Shiro’s grip on his hair tightens until he tips his head back compliantly, and then Shiro’s mouthing at the exposed line of his neck in a kind of worshipful mauling.

“I might need a little luck to bring me back,” Shiro whispers. Uncertain. Because he wants this—wants the history he’s going to make—but he wants to come home. Maybe he’s meant for stars but he’s meant for Keith too.

Keith still doesn’t know how to be anything other than obstinate but he says, “You’re taking everything with you, Shiro.” Keith hopes that the words he can’t quite say are heard. _You’re taking my everything with you_. They must be. Shiro kisses up his throat, his jaw, and finds his lips blindly. They tangle up in the dark, instinctive, supernovas burning on nostalgia and hope.

* * *

Five months after mission failure he will stitch up his own ribs in his shitty bathroom. There will have been a fight. After so long without anyone to touch him, he craved human contact, and a fist would do as well as a kiss. Instead he got a knife sliding along the space between his ribs. Not quite kissing his lungs. There will be a heart rending second where he wishes his reflexes were slower. It would be nice for there to be nothing.

* * *

The world falls apart by degrees.

Keith’s in the middle of an exam for Starchart Orientation. He’s on the third of five pages, way ahead of everyone in the class, when the absolute quiet is broken by a door opening. An administrator wearing high heels scurries down the auditorium steps to the instructor. Unusual, because no one interrupts exams. It merits everyone sneaking glances at her.

Young, pale, spine drawn tight like a steel chord through a marionette. She’s whispering to the instructor. Frantic paced. Matched to the flighty movements of her hands.

Annoyance and blood drain from the instructor’s face. She’s gone marionette stiff too, clearing her throat once, then twice. If people weren’t looking before they are now. The instructor knows that much because her eyes dart over the room. Briefly they land on Keith and pause.

Instinct tells him that something is _wrong_.

The Starchart Orientation instructor is a hardass but in that moment, when their eyes meet, she gives him a look that’s desperately pitying. But then she’s looking at the administrator again, whispering back fiercely, and shooing the woman away. The whole exchange takes maybe two minutes.

Before he’d worked through the exam slowly. Now he races through it, taking no time to second guess his equations or perfect the lines of his charts. Paper crinkles beneath the force of his grip as he walks down to the instructor and hands it over. She takes it, but does not meet his eyes, instead focusing on smoothing out the pieces of paper like it actually matters.

“What happened?” he asks. It’s not that he expects an answer but he wants one, anyway.

The instructor glances up and says in a curt tone, “It’s classified. You may go.” Maybe he’d believe her if her hands, gripping his papers, hadn’t begun to tremble.

It keeps going like this. Adults whispering among themselves and giving the students weary eyed looks. Keith’s skin crawls. Their eyes keep finding him and they look at him with such all consuming pity. Like they know he’s about to die and haven’t figured out how to tell him yet. If he could he would grab them and shake them until they give him an answer.

By the time evening rolls around all he wants to do is work out some of his aggression in the gym. Halfway there, he hears his first bit of real news. Comes from two officers, arguing intently enough that they don’t notice the lone cadet.

Hungry for anything, Keith presses into the shadows and snatches at their conversation. “Kerberos mission lost contact” and “might not have made it to second checkpoint” and “can’t be Shiro’s fault.” There he makes a soft noise, but it’s loud enough for how tense they are. Conversation ceases. Boots click off in another direction.

Somehow it’s a relief when they announce the next morning, over breakfast, that the Kerberos mission has failed. All crew is lost. Cause is pilot error. The world ends.

* * *

Eleven months after mission failure he will say his apologies to a dead man. The weight of dogtags against his chest, cold at first but warming against his skin, will feel like an anchor. The salt dried to his cheeks and the scar hiding on his ribs will feel like a memory. And the sky above him, galaxy bright and streaking meteor shower stars, will feel like some kind of absolution.


End file.
